


Passion of a Vulcan Like Mind

by Jemppu



Series: Honey Mushroom [48]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Art, Culmets - Freeform, Fanart, M/M, honeymushroom, tumblt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23838064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemppu/pseuds/Jemppu
Summary: Part of"Honey Mushroom"series of illustrated Culmets momentslisted here on tumblr, and of"Months"moments, taking place before the couple's ultimate Discovery mission.An intimate moment.With illustration:"Open Your Eyes".
Relationships: Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets
Series: Honey Mushroom [48]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1080993
Kudos: 12





	Passion of a Vulcan Like Mind

**Author's Note:**

> The series gets released quite out of order, as inspiration dictates, so I urge you to check out the [series list on tumblr](https://tinyurl.com/honeyshroom) for a better picture of the whole.

## 

## Passion of a Vulcan Like Mind

“You? On Vulcan?” Hugh muses on the thought, while his fingers play somewhere behind Paul’s ear, tickling pleasantly.

  
“What of it?” Paul replies humorlessly, appreciating the sweet, tangible sensation of the man’s body pressed against his, as they lay in abandon in each others’ arms. “They offered the position right before we left Earth. I wasn’t sure at first either, given what I promised you, but I’m glad to accept the offer now”.  
  
Now, that he knows he can’t take it here on this ship. He tried. He had brought his officer home, just as he decided, but the torment of memories is too much for him to stay.  
  
“Sorry, I have difficulty picturing your temperament in that cultural environment”, Hugh chuckles, apparently heedless to Paul’s ordeal.  
  
“Or imagining how you’d be as a teacher”, the doctor adds with a more carefully jesting tone, his fingers walking along Paul’s collarbone, “I dread for any poor student, who takes an opposing view from yours”.  
  
“As you should”, Paul states with a solemn matter-of-factness, seemingly unacknowledging of the playfulness, “I’d welcome well founded observations, of course, but such a view you propose would be high on the risk of being wrong, and the supposed student with such standing indeed most likely slated for failure”.  
  
Not a hint of apparent emotion in his delivery, one way or the other.  
  
“But I have high expectations, that Vulcans, if anyone, are worthy students, and would have their best interests in mind”, Paul concludes, scratching away the ticklish trail the tiny steps just left on his neck.  
  
“Mm-hmm”, Hugh’s familiar hum is accompanied by a faintly amused smile, this time to signal his uncertainty with the seriousness of Paul’s current state, just as it is to confirm the doctor’s previous statement.  
  
“You’d be corrupting so many a Vulcan youth with your fiery enthusiasm”, Hugh maintains with a certain mirth.  
  
“ _Fiery enthusiasm_?” Paul raises an eyebrow, “Highly unlikely I could manage corrupting levels of vigor for anything anymore”, he huffs unfazed, his hand absentmindedly sailing up and down along Hugh’s arm, suddenly vaguely registering the unexpected firmness of the man here next to him.  
  
Hugh’s arm around Paul shifts beneath him - an affectionate pat on Paul’s backside questions that last statement. “Really? Not for anything?” the man smiles beckoningly at his serious scientist.  
  
Paul refuses to turn and look at his Love in the eyes, or to register the man’s playful disposition in full. “Is that how little you think of me, or my lecturing abilities?” he asks dully, opting instead to dispute the doctor’s comments, while his mind is busily preoccupied with trying to comprehend this comforting sense of a distinct touch he’s experiencing on his body.  
  
Paul thinks it wiser to try and maintain a certain air of lethargy about himself, wary to fully succumb to this unusually blessed sensation he feels treacherously fragile. As desperately as he’d want to answer to it. Need to. He should know better by now, shouldn’t he?  
  
“Mushroom, come on”, Hugh purrs encouragingly, “you know I think the world of you”, he assures, while fondly regarding the familiar silvery Starfleet Medical pendant around Paul’s neck, “you are great many things, Honey - fantastic lecturer included -, but a people person you are not”.  
  
“However, I’m sure your devotion to perfection would make you an effective teacher as well, if not the kindest. Just as we have seen here, with the care you have for the crew”, Hugh points to something else Paul has insistently tried to deny he has any regard for, “but still… Vulcan?”  
  
Hugh rolls on to his side to face Paul, their eyes dangerously close now, his free hand making an adoring tour over Mushroom’s stomach. As Paul closes his eyes, the touch becomes that much more tangible.  
  
“Honey, you have much too much heart”, Hugh sighs with such affection in his voice it’s shattering Paul’s defenses to dust, “You’ll suffocate yourself trying to fit into that society”.  
  
Paul shifts slightly under the man’s inescapably tantalizing touch, to hopelessly try and gather himself. Fuck, the man’s words too are too much. Paul is increasingly desperate to give into it - just throw himself on his Love and show the appreciation he has for this gorgeous soul here pouring honey all over Mushroom’s sullen mood.  
  
But, is he? Here. Where? And how?  
  
“The Vulcan Science Academy wouldn’t have need for a ‘kind teacher’. I can imagine myself quite at home without all the exhausting human drama around me”, Paul attests, averting his eyes, and struggling to keep himself from surrendering to this tempting deceit, “Maybe that’s exactly what I want - what I need”, his hand still confused for the man, now idly lingering on the doctor’s seductively well defined hips, afraid to act on any impulses, “I need to stop feeling”.  
  
Even with his eyes turned down, Paul can sense Hugh watching him with painfully affectionate pity.  
  
“If that was true, or even possible - which it isn’t -, Vulcans too do feel, Paul”, the man so gently brushes aside a strand of hair tangling upon Paul’s forehead, “They just train their whole life not to show it, or to act on it”.  
  
“Isn’t that exactly what you most detest, Mushroom?”, the persuader leans forward to try and get the morose man to look up at him.  
  
“Maybe it’s time I learn”, Paul responds coldly, desperate in avoiding the eye contact, stubbornly refusing to answer to the alluring touch completely, against all his burning instincts.  
  
“Learned to deny your true self?” Hugh replies dubiously, “You’d hate it. Actively trying to keep yourself hidden even here with the Fleet has been but adding to your misery”.

“Well, that’s just how I am”, Paul scoffs, “I don’t have any wish to go open up to every damn person I come in contact with”. One would do. The one.  
  
“Yes, but to keep that up constantly? You’d resent them for their ‘pretentious disposition’, and soon resent yourself, being forced to conduct yourself emulating it, never allowing yourself to be true to your true self”.  
  
Such abstrusity, forcing Paul to think on the words. Why, Hugh? Why are you making this so hard? Why can’t the man just let him go? Wasn’t Dear Doctor up until now adamant Paul move on? Or had that been Paul himself? What if this is Paul now? There’s no telling between them anymore. The minds seem to edge ever closer to being unanimous for Paul to give into this moment, if there even is more than one mind here right now.  
  
“Justin often joked about my ‘ _Vulcan mind’_ ”, Paul remarks offhandedly, with an irate frown, trying to push aside the confusion, and insisting not to show how he’s struggling. Which is really quite futile: Hugh must know anyway. There is no way the man pressed this close to him and occupying his mind would **not** be aware of the desire Paul is despairingly battling here. The infuriating tease.  
  
“Joked. Perhaps precisely because he too recognized that stubborn grapple to maintain this unnecessary hard-hearted facade”, Hugh effectively outlines both Paul’s general and current situations, “someone who knows you well should see you have far too much unbridled passion in you for that to be the true you”.  
  
_“Never hide who you are”, right?_  
  
Hypocrite. That’s the first thing the man had called Paul upon their meeting. And had been right even then, as he always is. As he is now?  
  
“Though, your distant arrogance must appear to perfectly match the commonly held view of a Vulcan character occasionally, to those who don’t know you, I suspect”, Hugh adds smiling with surprisingly soothing levity.  
  
“Hmh”, Paul shrugs, taking in the thought, suddenly a slight twinkle in his eyes, “…but I have too much _‘unbridled passion’_ you say?” he then yields, disregarding his persistent gravity, as he apprehensively turns his playful smirk at Hugh, readying himself for this blessed dream to end short.  
  
But the man stays here. Startlingly, staring right back at Paul’s surprised gaze with almost haunting clarity. Paul’s grip on the newly corporeal man tightens in a moment of incredulity.  
  
For the first time in weeks - but which feels like a year - Paul is able to **see** the man, to look into those loving eyes again, bathe in that radiant smile, and respond to all of the emotions he now thirstily reads from the man’s beautiful face. And fuck, if there aren’t tears on Paul’s own.  
  
The man really is right here.  
  
Hugh smiles back, his hand reaching to tenderly wipe the stray tears off Paul’s cheek, glad to finally see that familiar boyish charm light up on the man’s face again. “Yes, there’s too much passion for your own good”, the doctor confirms puckishly, correctly perceiving Paul’s intended line of thought.  
  
“Care to… care to help me with that?” Paul proposes, following his original improbable carnal intent, despite almost choking on his own words now, in disbelief of the actual possibility, as his hands start their usual boldly expectant journey across the familiar landscape of the man’s body.  
  
Touch. Not even real, solid touch chases away this sensation of the man here in his embrace, like a mere attempt at a look has for the past few weeks.  
  
How? Fuck, like it matters.  
  
“What? You think I could be of help to lessen your passion?” Hugh smiles, quite deliberately feigning ignorance, while seemingly fully enjoying the man’s curious fingers now confidently on him, searching through all the places they know too well how to tend to, and have missed so desperately to caress.  
  
“Fuck, no”, Paul plays along, almost laughing in elation, more than eager for the offered chance to profess his affections for this divine man, “I was thinking help with putting some of it in use”.  
  
“If you’re still up for that”, Hugh teases, his hands now starting their own enjoyable quest along Paul’s back, welcoming the man to lean in harder against his Love.  
  
“Oh, I’m up”, Paul’s cocky affirmation results a delighted chuckle from Hugh, “As you so astutely observed: I’m overflowing with passion”.  
  
How is Hugh here? Where is here? Where is Paul? It all seems to matter increasingly little, as Paul’s certainty on the authenticity of this privileged moment takes over.  
  
Right now, right here, with this heavenly man in his keen hold, they are both as real to each other as can be, and that is all that should matter.  
  
If this is a dream, Paul sure as hell doesn’t want to wake from it. If he’s hooked himself up into the network again - or never left it - he hopes for his life no-one comes to unplug him. Unauthorized or not - that sort of thing doesn’t hold any weight here where ever he is.  
  
Is he letting this get out of control? Letting his grip from reality slip? What does it matter? This much desire, he longs for it to be real again. And right now, that’s exactly what this is. Their only reality, and there exists nothing else in the universe.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts on the work posted along with the illustration on [**tumblr**](https://jmalkki.tumblr.com/post/182351844674/open-your-eyes-yes-here-we-are-on-the-skin).
> 
> _Likes, shares, comments and what have you, all appreciated on:_  
>  _[ **tumblr**](http://jmalkki.tumblr.com/) | [**twitter**](https://twitter.com/Jemppu) | [**instagram**](https://www.instagram.com/jeminamalkki/) | [**DeviantArt**](https://www.deviantart.com/jemppu)_


End file.
